Review of Bonanzle

[bargainbloodhound]

I think the reason people try sites that aren't established is because they don't like the prices or experience they're getting from the existing sites, and/or they have the vision to see how great new products become successful old products.

The people who make up the majority of users on newer "eBay alternative" sites also tend to be overwhelmingly smaller sellers (many of them "hobby sellers") because they have less at risk by trying a site where the payoff could be months/years away. 

Larger sellers, who tend to have fixed monthly operating costs that must be met, don't have the option/luxury of listing on a site and hoping "if they (sellers) build it (list) they (buyers) will come".  I can't afford to devote time and resources to any channel that won't produce immediate results, and most other businesses/full time sellers are in the same situation. Plus there's the matter of lack of integration with 3rd party tools (in our case Fillz for media sales on 7 venues llike Amazon/Alibris/Play, etc and Stone Edge for our websites)  and the extra time (and money) that would be required to manually process/fulfill orders as a result of that lack of support. 

It's not a matter of not wanting to support new sites, it's a matter of it being financial suicide  for many of us if we did.

I had no clue that because I mention a particular e-commerce product, Web site, or service in a news piece or round-up style story, that people look at it as a seal of approval

Many auction sellers do view a site's mention in any auction related publication as a seal of approval and will try a site based solely on it being mentioned in an article.  A large number of them will join without bothering to do any further research on the site. I also think many auction sellers place more blind faith in the opinions of "experts" (and even in the opinions of other forum posters) than people in other industries do because a significant number of eBay/auction sellers began their selling careers without any real background in selling or running a business, and many of them are relatively clueless about the ecommerce world beyond eBay (which is why so many auction site owners are able to spend $210 on a cheap  auction script like phpProBid, announce their site as the next eBay on PSU, and immediately have sellers rushing to join a site that has nothing going for it other than the owner's ability to spew BS). 

[sneakymagenta]

Morons on Parade Alert!  

moron defined - any seller who moronically and intentionally lowers their profit margins by posting (aka spamming) signpost listings on a high traffic sales venue that doesn't charge FVFs (craigslist) in an effort to lead buyers to their listings on a low traffic sales venue that charges FVF fees. :

324 examples of stupidity for your viewing pleasure http://www.google.com/search?q=bonanzle%...gslist.org&sourceid=groowe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 :

[amy]

[quote author=sneakymagenta link=topic=18224.msg73114#msg73114 date=1225146922]
moron defined - any seller who moronically and intentionally lowers their profit margins by posting (aka spamming) signpost listings on a high traffic sales venue that doesn't charge FVFs (craigslist) in an effort to lead buyers to their listings on a low traffic sales venue that charges FVF fees. :

324 examples of stupidity for your viewing pleasure http://www.google.com/search?q=bonanzle%...gslist.org&sourceid=groowe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 :
[/quote]

Here's 34,900 examples of extreme stupidity  ;D
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&c2coff=1&safe=off&q=ebay.com+%2Bsite%3Acraigslist.org&btnG=Search

Now on Ebay.com - REDUCED - DRAFT HORSE SHOW HARNESS

I need to get this sold so I have listed it for auction on ebay.com.

[amy]

A quote from PSU 

We at Bonanzle have been wondering why we aren't on the PSU listing count board with 247,383 listings, that would unofficially make us #11 ! ...

It would unofficially make Bonanzle #11 if you're an OAI boardie with a myopic view of the ecommerce landscape and ignorantly choose to ignore the listing counts of, or are unaware of the existence of, several multi-seller venues which aren't included on PSU's chart like Amazon, craigslist, Etsy--or these 6  venues which are rarely mentioned at PSU (Buy.com is mentioned repeatedly, but I can count on one hand the number of times it has been mentioned on PSU as an "eBay alternative" selling venue):

Abebooks 110,000,000
Alibris 100,000,000
GEMM 30,000,000
MusicStack 25,000,000
Discogs 2,700,000
Buy.com Marketplace -more than Ecrater (moviemars has 230K listings on Buy, importcds 133K, bigrockmedia 71K...now add in the listings from the rest of us who sell on Buy)

When you pull your head out of the OAI forum sand and look at the broader ecommerce market 247,000 listings suddenly doesn't look too impressive-- 247K listings spread out over every category under the sun translates into a limited selection of merchandise for buyers in any category. 

[mandy]

if you're an OAI boardie with a myopic view of the ecommerce landscape

The latest membership numbers - as reported on PSU today:

Bonanzle 8,500 members
AtomicMall 2,700 members

Putting the numbers into perspective - Overstock Auctions had 500,000 registered users after its first year of operation. 

Auctions.Overstock.com has had...more than 500,000 registered users in its first year, according to the company.

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=16332

Etsy added 103,000 new members in October alone and has 1.4 million members.  Amazon has 81 million active customers and eBay has 84 million active users.

More perspective the combined membership of Bonanzle and AtomicMall is slightly less than half the 22,500 members who have registered on Wagglepop since it reopened.

[mandy]

A quote

According to CEO Bill Harding; "At Bonanzle, the key to making sales is to be an engaged part of the community.  It is no coincidence that many of our most successful sellers are also active forum posters, bloggers, and multi-channel Bonanzle promoters."

http://www.myblogutopia.com/2008/11/bona...along.html

[amy]

[quote author=mandy link=topic=18224.msg73404#msg73404 date=1228210352]
A quote

According to CEO Bill Harding; "At Bonanzle, the key to making sales is to be an engaged part of the community.  It is no coincidence that many of our most successful sellers are also active forum posters, bloggers, and multi-channel Bonanzle promoters."

http://www.myblogutopia.com/2008/11/bona...along.html
[/quote]

That quote alone is reason enough for me not to consider Bonanzle at the moment. 

[xwpopper]

[quote author=amy link=topic=18224.msg73427#msg73427 date=1228527241]
[quote author=mandy link=topic=18224.msg73404#msg73404 date=1228210352]
A quote

According to CEO Bill Harding; "At Bonanzle, the key to making sales is to be an engaged part of the community.  It is no coincidence that many of our most successful sellers are also active forum posters, bloggers, and multi-channel Bonanzle promoters."

http://www.myblogutopia.com/2008/11/bona...along.html
[/quote]

That quote alone is reason enough for me not to consider Bonanzle at the moment. 
[/quote]

That conversation got a little more lively than the cheerleaders this week
I love to see a challenger to the equation. What I don't get is how Randy, who I have respect for as an eBay seller, would sell on a real eBay alternative like Amazon now while touting Bonanzle as a great alternative, but never actually trying it out... or maybe he has, but the results were so unimpressive that he decided not to let anyone know.
For instance, from the same category that Randy sells:
http://www.bonanzle.com/users/4051/user_feedbacks
Movie Magic USA - 16000 items listed, 13 feedbacks, evidence of total sell through:.0008%
Same feedback on eBay from the past 30 days:
13000 items listed, 5321 feedback (Total 232000+, 100% positive feedback) Sell through: 41%
Why would such a strong, long term Powerseller try to build business on a site like Bonanzle?

Also, check this out:
http://www.bonanzle.com/users/1/user_feedbacks
The founder has no feedback as a seller since starting the site.
Another founder finally sold something last week:
http://www.bonanzle.com/users/173/user_feedbacks

I guess I just don't get the social side of business. Maybe I need an education tonight... oh wait, there is too much I need to do on the site I SELL on tonight.  No time to unproductively list and chat.

[bargainbloodhound]

Why would such a strong, long term Powerseller try to build business on a site like Bonanzle?

My question is why aren't they using their moviemagicusa.com domain name on their website instead of using a prostores.com subdomain?  The domain name forwards to this

Code:

http://store02.prostores.com/servlet/moviemagicusa/StoreFront

I guess I just don't get the social side of business

I understand the value of buyer orientated social sites like Kaboodle and buyer generated social features like reviews....and I understand that any site where the top sellers rely on forum links/posting and socializing with other sellers to generate sales is a site with relatively few sales

[regic]

I split the AtomicMall posts into a separate topic.